The topics of this blog are Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Duke of Richelieu, and the IDEAL CITY built on his command next to his magnificent CHÂTEAU on the borders of Touraine, Anjou and Poitou, in France.

Tuesday, 30 June 2009

In 2008 the notary of the cité idéale of Richelieu, Maître Pierre Gravel, founded a car enthusiasts club for Cadillac &LaSalle cars, made in that 'city of the rapids', Detroit, Michigan USA. He has already attracted more than 20 members and looks forward to further expansion of the club this year. While mighty General Motors is wobbly in the US at present, the subject of a huge 'bale-out' in the 2008 Credit Crunch, the older grandiose cars of this marque certainly have their following in France.

Below a member's car - a 1937 Fleetwood ‘Convertible Sedan’

Below in Scribd is the second annual report which shows how to register your own vast automobile and join in the club's activities. In French - get used to it!

Wednesday, 24 June 2009

The cité idéale of Richelieu is not a wealthy town. It has never been really prosperous since the death of the cardinal in 1642. After all, without the great minister himself, and since the 1830s without his grand palace filled with the entourage of the succeeding dukes of Richelieu, is this not a truely isolated large village, surrounded with 30 kilometers of agricultural land in every direction? Any pre-existing centre was reduced at the cardinal's command to emphasise the hubris of the great man's new duchy.

In the nineteenth century, Paris' passion for baby white veal made Richelieu a centre for animal husbandry; place Louis XIII was a busy veal market; a large veal factory on rue Henri Proust sent its product to Paris from the grand new SNCF railway station, through Chinon on to the metropolis. Today veal and other livestock are raised elsewhere, white veal is almost taboo and the railway line lies derelict (see photo below).

There are a few factories on the town's industrial estate on the road to Chinon, but these seem frail. The largest, Richelieu Art et Meubles de France, has now moved much of its furniture production to Romania, and the large factory seems ghostly in comparison with former days. Timber and stone construction firms seem the most active. Ets. Merlot have just constructed a new computerised timber mill, but this seems exceptional.

Chômage - unemployment - secondary and retirement homes (and three schools!) are today the main business of the town intra-muros. The actual residential population within the walls must be very low; the official statistics for the town of Richelieu show 2000 souls registered at the Mairie, but only a small proportion actually live within the walls of this Touraine Pompeii.

The retail business of the town is largely conducted at the neighbouring suburb of Chaveignes where the town's few 'grand surfaces' are located; Intermarché Mousquetaires supermarket; recently expanded, a branch of the Weldom hardware franchise, the builder's merchants Colomat. But these three make a viable business by serving the car-driving population of the large agricultural hinterland that, being isolated, finds it quicker to get to Chaveignes in a car trip of a few miles (with easy parking) than the one hour trip to the mega-grand surfaces of Chambray les Tours.

This paradoxical dilemma is the reason that the town remains zombie-like; neither really dead nor really alive. This is why the extraordinary architectural feat of the town is, to this day one might say, 'in a vegetative state'.

There are a few retailers within the town itself - presumably rents are very low - and they show the much loved traditional face of la France profonde, but they seem to be closing too - last year M. Bigot's (sic) fish shop closed, with even the adjoining pompes funebres shop joining him in funereal obsequies. Even death doesn't make enough loot to survive!!

P.S. This reads a bit negative (even if it is largely true): I'll find a some other shops that grace the walled town to show all is not yet lost. Maybela belle dormante can be awakened by the right prince's kiss.

Friday, 19 June 2009

The 20th year's festivities of the twinning of the towns of Richelieu and Schaafheim were held over the weekend of the 13-14 June 2009. Schaafheim is a small town in Germany located a few miles from Frankfurt.

About 80 people came from Germany by bus and were hosted by various families from the town of Richelieu. Speeches were made; dinner was eaten in the market hall; concerts were sung; picnics were had; wineries and vineyards were visited.

The Schaafheim town band played for the gatherings.

M. le Maire/secrétaire d'État Hervé Novelli presented a rusting 'Cor-ten' laser-cut panel to the Burgermeister of Schaafheim, Reinhold Hehmann, to mount in the Rathaus back home.

Wednesday, 17 June 2009

In mid June the sun is not only the highest in the sky but also the brightest. This picture shows the dark azure sky at mid-day in mid-June shining down on the ragged roofs of 16 Grande Rue.

Very shortly the builders will re-roof this old building and make it sound and weather-tight again. But something picturesque will be lost, don't you agree? Traditionally constructed buildings using old and 'noble' materials distress so well.

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

The well known pianist, Nicholas Boyer, is the artistic diector of the growing and successful

Festival de Musique du Dôme de Richelieu

The events take place centred on the Dôme in the Parc de Richelieu, the remnants of the huge palace built for the eponymous cardinal duke in the 1640s. This year will be the first to welcome the Orchestre Symphonique de la Région Centre from Tours.

Wednesday, 10 June 2009

One must be careful not to spill wine into the keyboard as this can quickly mean a new replacement, which often comes expensive. Coca Cola Lite is the absolutely the worst, I understand. Same goes for crumbs from one's bacon sandwich of a morning.

Monday, 8 June 2009

Very extensive restoration works are underway at the mediaeval fortress of Chinon. This wonderful fighting castle has been neglected over the years (since 1300!) and the conseil général of Indre-et-Loire has decided to enhance it by bringing it back to the state in which it was about 200 years ago. Already a ruin, the last usable rooms were in the centre module of the castle - the so-called Royal Apartments. In the last couple of hundred years they had lost their roofs and become picturesque ruins (see the 'before' picture).

Monuments de France under the direction of chief architect for la region Centre, Arnaud de Saint-Jouan and his team have brought the old shell of these apartments back up to roof level, re-roofed and slated, installed new windows and generally made the wonderful structures live again.

The dilemmas of what to do with very old historic structures has been a subject of aesthetic debate across the channel for many years. The cultural battle was fought out in the nineteenth century between the architectural theorist and restorer, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (who for example recreated the mediaeval city of Carcassone) and Prosper Merimée for the frogs, and William Morris and his organisation S.P.A.B. for the rosbifs. The French dream of turning the clock back (as for example here in Chinon), while the Brits love the sepia gauze of crumbly sentimentality. One side accuses the other of 'over-restoration'; the other of 'under-restoration'.

Friday, 5 June 2009

The closest town to the cité idéale of Richelieu is the picturesque town of Chinon. The mediaeval town runs along the north bank of the river Vienne below the towering castle rock. The castle was built by the many generations of Plantagenets who ruled much of western europe in the 12th and 13th centuries from this very castle.

Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine; their sons Richard 'coeur de lion', the famous crusader; his bother John, 'bad king John' of the legends of 'Robin Hood' and the English Magna Carta, all held court in this castle. Later on, Joan of Arc passed through on her mission from God to help the Valois kings of France in their struggle with the usurper duc de Bourgogne and his allies, the witch-burning English. Even later, our very own cardinal duc de Richelieu bought the sovereignety of Chinon in his quest to assemble a ducal estate, and so became the Governor of Chinon Castle (which he neglected - he was battling against castles and their intransigent and belligerant owners for most of his political career).

The castle is a big tourist attraction and the conseil général of 37 Indre-et-Loire wants to enhance its attractiveness to the tourist.

They have just built a striking new lift to connect the town below with the old castle above. The dramatic, fashionable and modern structure wisks the tourist upwards while offering panoramas of the sweeping valley of the Vienne. A little further to the west at Candes St. Martin one can see the conjunction of the river Vienne with the Loire. This conjunction explains the strategic position of the fortress for a time when river travel was much safer and easier than journeys made cross-country.

Tuesday, 2 June 2009

The cité idèale of Richelieu was built on a marshy area of low lying land that was available for the cardinal at the time of the foundation of the new town in the 1630s. The river Veude has many mediaeval water-mills along its length, but these were situated a couple of miles or more away from the town.

Maybe the absence of water-mills immediately close-by caused the construction of a fine wind-mill on the high ground to the north west (see the location on the Google map on the right). This old and impressive stucture sits bang on the high point, and while the stone drum does not have its sails any more, much of the impressive structure remains.

Here's another 17 century French wind-mill to see how the sails might have been originally. This one is at Saint Roch in Provence. Note how the glacis is necessary to allow the swing of the sails without braining the miller or even worse the pretty miller's daughter - die schöne Müllerin - the object of much mediaeval fascination (she was a real rural heiress if she had no brothers to come before her!)

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what is the purpose of this web-site?

This web-log site is an English language sign-post to the current developments in this unique IDEAL CITY built originally for

Armand-Jean du Plessis,cardinal duc de Richelieu,

to designs of Jacques Lemercier and his brothers between the years 1631 and 1642 : to British readers in the rule of Charles I, and just before the English Civil War: to North Americans at the time of the French colonial initiatives in 'Acadie' (Nova Scotia) and of the English in Virginia.

The pretty walled and moated seventeenth century town of RICHELIEU remains today the most complete French urban design project of the age of King Louis XIII and the stories of Alexandre Dumas' THE THREE MUSKETEERS.

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